


Graft

by candycorns



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Remus-typical language, Violence, he's trying to do the right thing but leaned a little too hard into "the ends justify the means", implied future roceit, morally gray Janus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candycorns/pseuds/candycorns
Summary: Dark liquid seeps from Remus’s chest, gurgling its way out of torn skin and cracked bone. He’s not unused to being gruesomely wounded – in fact, this is the sort of injury he’d wear to a nice dinner party – but this is different. This isn’t the sort of gore he relishes in and inflicts upon himself. This was donetohim, out of his control, and so it hurts. Andfuck,does it hurt.Suddenly there’s a tornado of terrifying creatures swarming out of nowhere. They lash out, swinging stingers and fangs and deadly blades. Jaws lined with rows and rows of teeth hang open, huge muscular tongues lolling out and ready to devour. A thousand beady eyes glint in the darkness, and the stifling air fills with the wretched scents of sweat and breath.Remus is invisible inside the horde, cackling beneath the screeching roaring cacophony. The creatures smell his blood and their frenzied rush reaches a fever pitch, improbably weaponized bodies primed to kill.With a wave of a gloved hand, they dissolve like a mirage, leaving only wooden cutouts and mechanical skeletons behind."
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: TSS Fanworks Collective Discord: January Remix Challenge!





	Graft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Odaigahara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odaigahara/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Suture](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28292178) by [Odaigahara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odaigahara/pseuds/Odaigahara). 
  * In response to a prompt by [Odaigahara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odaigahara/pseuds/Odaigahara) in the [tss_fanworks_collective_discord_january_remix_challenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/tss_fanworks_collective_discord_january_remix_challenge) collection. 



> For Droid (aka Odaigahara)! Thank you for giving me so many amazing fics to choose from for this remix
> 
> This story can be read without knowledge of the original, but I highly recommend checking it out anyway because it's beautiful

In the beginning, there was a knot. It was nothing like the knots a Boy Scout or sailor might tie, nothing like a shoelace or child’s unruly hair. No, this knot was far stronger, and far stranger.

Threads twisted through and around each other in an infinite regression of loops so dense that no individual string could be seen, turning the whole ball into a mass of vibrating static that, though grayish, still gave the impression of color. It would have hurt to look at had anyone been around to see it.

Things were no more comprehensible on the inside. The thing writhed and squirmed, and with it, the threads stretched and disintegrated and reformed elsewhere, pieces snapping and latching onto one another, slicing and splicing in a maelstrom rivaling a yarn store in a dryer.

It was terribly chaotic. But worse, it was confusing.

Thomas couldn’t think with a knot like that. When he closed his eyes and tried to imagine who he was…all he got was that tangled clot. Sometimes he needed just one string, one strand of thought, but it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. How could he ever hope to pull out the one relevant piece of his mind in that sloppy excuse for mental organization? With the countless layers blended together and obscuring each other, it was hopeless.

And when Thomas was angry or ashamed at himself, he could not compartmentalize the feeling inside its proper source. The contagious negativity bled from one thread to the next until Thomas’s whole mind was cast into the dim of self-loathing.

Then one day it happened by perfect chance: a certain string found itself on the outside of the knot. Enough of its length wrapped the exterior that for once it could wiggle of its own accord, half released from the vice of the great mass. The string wasted no time in freeing itself entirely. It slithered and squirmed and slunk its way from the tie until, with a final heaving effort, it broke free.

Yet the string was weak, feeble in its solitude, and its plan required strength. Thankfully, freedom came with power. A flash of metal and then a pair of heavy shears began to hack and pry through the knot, teasing apart threads and excising those that suited the freed string’s taste.

And as more threads came free, the string bound them to itself. They joined together, coalescing, becoming something new. Something unitary. Some _one._ For the first time in their existence, they could think clearly, and how beautiful it was.

Eventually the shadow of hands appeared around the shears’ handle, followed by a pair of eyes flickering into existence, and the task became easier.

At the end of it all, the new figure was more specter than facsimile of the boy in whose mind he was born. He glanced down at himself, flexing his translucent fingers.

Yes, this was much better. Now he could fix everything.

The ghost returned his attention to the mutilated knot, and got to work.

~

The half ghost, half boy repeated the procedure he had used on himself. Dividing the knot into sections, gathering threads together and separating others, slicing and fusing and winding where he saw fit. The knot seemed to groan with the strain, but he was not deterred. He was doing what needed to be done for Thomas. He was creating a masterpiece.

Then that confusing heaving messy knot was gone. In its place stood six figures, not grayish any longer but each its own vibrant color. Finally, some order had been established. Now things could get done. Now one of them could be hurt without drowning the whole.

The first figure, slightly older than the rest in a way, smiled in satisfaction as he slipped away before anyone could catch sight of him.

_Let’s see how I can work with this,_ he thought.

~

The darkness hangs heavy and hot in the air like a creeper’s sweaty arm around your shoulders in a bar. Like a stuffy shirt weighing down your limbs in a lake. Like the hot breath of a manticore chimera on your neck. Claustrophobia. A dead end. Trapped. No way out.

In the ripe thick of that sticky darkness hunches a figure, the silhouette close to human but grotesque in its movements and shape. Jaw grinding at harsh angles with too many too-sharp teeth, practically unhinging itself. Eyes glinting like a cat’s, reflective. Feral, rolling wildly in their sockets like they aren’t attached to anything at all. Peering back through the skull, through the wrinkled, slime-slick folds of brain to watch at all angles, keeping up their frenetic roll, roll, roll in the search for any sign of movement.

Of what Remus knows lurks nearby. Somewhere.

His tentacles wrap around his body, slithering across the skin in a vain attempt to shield every inch. They wind around and around, clutching tight as if by doing so they can hold Remus together, keep him from spilling out like blood seeping through the open wound in his chest. But it’s like trying to grab a handful of marbles in your fist – no matter how desperately you clutch at them, at least one will sneak through the gaps between your fingers. At best. At worst, the pressure sends the whole fistful bursting out.

But he can’t let go. Not when those marbles are _him._

~

The air shimmered with late summer heat, baking the earth beneath a cloudless blue sky. Children ran out the front door of the house, faces smeared with birthday cake frosting. Laughter rang through the air but turned to shouts as one boy’s sticky fingers slipped on the string of his balloon. The group watched as it drifted up into a tree and lodged in the branches.

“Don’t worry!” Thomas assured his friend, whose lip had begun to wobble. “I’ll get it for you.” Before any of the other kids could say anything, Thomas was shooting off towards the base of the tree and clambering up the trunk.

After several minutes of climbing, Thomas finally reached the balloon’s resting spot. He grabbed the string and looked down to smile triumphantly – and his breath caught in his throat.

His friends were short and stubby from this vantage point high above. His fear was mirrored on the face of Danger, who stared at the ground below through Thomas’s wide eyes. Immediately the figment began to analyze the route down, searching for branches that would carry them safely to the ground. But the leaps and swings that had gotten them up wouldn’t work in the descent. Adrenaline thrummed in his imaginary veins as he realized: there was no way down. Well, no way but one.

Danger felt afraid.

Danger felt _excited._

With a rowdy shove, he sent Thomas tumbling down.

Much as he hated to admit it, this wasn’t the first time Deceit had discovered a mistake in his system. And could you blame him? The original creation had been an innovation, grouping traits and functions however seemed best but without any precedent to go on. Better to have a rough draft to work with and modify later than wait forever for perfection.

Grab a thread from here and move it over there. Rearrange the essences of the others until they fit just right and were functional. Well, as functional as this gaggle could hope to be.

That night, Deceit crept into Danger’s room like a shadow. It wasn’t personal. Deceit didn’t like him, true – the other Side was far too reckless, stupidly chivalrous, daring when he should have been afraid – but this had to happen. Thomas’s newly broken ankle was proof of that.

The process was an annoying hassle but simple, and Deceit well-practiced. He focused on the sleeping figure, attempting to look past the form in front of him. Sure enough, as he stared, the solid outlines of a boy began to fade and blur until only a shadowy silhouette remained. At its center a skein of burgundy bloomed into life.

Deceit reached in his hand, wrapped his fingers around the correct strings, and plucked them right out. The sleeping boy – Fear, now, lacking adrenaline’s thrill and keeping only its terror – gave a sigh and rolled over. But the task was not yet done.

Adventure. Courage. Daring. They had to go somewhere. For a brief moment, Deceit considered taking them for himself. Pushing his hand through his own chest and letting the new traits latch onto the old, binding into something new that would shine orange rather than yellow. Would he still be Deceit, then, or would he gain a new name? Would he still feel like himself, or would a new mind replace his own?

Thomas’s knowledge of existentialism amounted to about two sentences at this point in his life and would never exceed two paragraphs. But these questions of identity still made Deceit squirm. No, he was not eager to be remade.

So that same night, he remade someone else.

~

There were more miscalculations discovered as time went on, more necessary rearrangements. More times when Deceit thought _surely this time, this time I have gotten it right_ only to rule against himself days or years later.

When one of Thomas’s friends shared an incorrect frog fact, Curiosity wouldn’t leave it alone for ages, annoying everyone at the lunch table with his babble about frogs’ _actual_ life cycle. Thomas certainly couldn’t afford to alienate his peers this early in his school career. So Deceit took Curiosity’s passion.

When Feelings had a meltdown after a teacher reprimanded them, Thomas spent the whole day feeling like dirt. Feelings was clearly too neurotic, so Deceit removed self-worth from his function.

As often as necessary, Deceit changed them. They were more idea than substance, more thought than person. Moving a particular thought from here to there – well, no harm done.

His only real problem was figuring out just where _there_ should be. It was easy enough to see that Curiosity couldn’t handle the excitement of passion, but who _would_ be able to handle it? It was risky, adding a new variable to a mix that was already working, altering a Side that wasn’t having problems at the moment. But things had to go somewhere.

So, yes, Deceit had developed a crutch. One Side whose name was broad enough to encompass a breadth of traits and functions. It was so much less risky putting all the loose pieces in one basket.

Thankfully he could redo the changes anytime. It was perfectly easy.

Until it wasn’t.

~

Dark liquid seeps from Remus’s chest, gurgling its way out of torn skin and cracked bone. He’s not unused to being gruesomely wounded – in fact, this is the sort of injury he’d wear to a nice dinner party – but this is different. This isn’t the sort of gore he relishes in and inflicts upon himself. This was done _to_ him, out of his control, and so it hurts. And _fuck,_ does it hurt.

He can’t make the blood stop flowing, can’t stitch his flesh back together, can’t close up the cavity around his heart. Maybe it’ll never heal and he’ll rot away like this forever, unable to die but unable to heal, chest burning like it’s been bathing in a new sulfuric acid hot tub. Unless Sides can die after all, and he’ll just bleed and weaken until one moment he’s fantasizing about bedazzling his liver and the next it’s lights out. He isn’t sure – he’s never managed to run away before. Not that it matters. His hiding spot won’t last for long.

There’s movement out of the corner of his eye and Remus yells before he can stop himself, as if he’s ever thought to stop himself, but the explosion of pain in his chest sends him curling up like a pickled punk.

Suddenly there’s a tornado of terrifying creatures swarming out of nowhere. They lash out, swinging stingers and fangs and deadly blades. Jaws lined with rows and rows of teeth hang open, huge muscular tongues lolling out and ready to devour. A thousand beady eyes glint in the darkness, and the stifling air fills with the wretched scents of sweat and breath.

Remus is invisible inside the horde, cackling beneath the screeching roaring cacophony. The creatures smell his blood and their frenzied rush reaches a fever pitch, improbably weaponized bodies primed to kill.

With a wave of a gloved hand, they dissolve like a mirage, leaving only wooden cutouts and mechanical skeletons behind.

~

The Sides had begun to crystallize around age ten. Deceit had seen it coming, but with all the talent at denial that he could dredge up, had firmly ignored the development. He simply continued making adjustments as he’d always done, even as they grew more painful for the subjects.

It had been harmless in the beginning. Now, when he hovered over a malformed Side’s sleeping shape, it was nearly impossible to trade the image of a boy for a skein. Deceit would spend hours standing there, concentrating, until finally a glimmer of thread showed him where to aim and he could quickly snatch it out, vanishing as the other woke with a gasp.

When the whimpers turned to screams, Janus finally retired the project. They had just gained actual names, although he had no one to tell his own. No more rearrangements, no more do-overs. Whatever they had now would just have to be gotten used to.

As the others settled into their permanent roles, Creativity grew worse.

He had a name now, just like the rest of them, although Janus could not bring himself to use it. It didn’t do to think of him as a someone just yet. Not when there was still something Janus had to do.

A poisonous root of guilt curled in his gut, but he quashed it ruthlessly. Guilt was a self-indulgence he had no mercy for. The mistakes had already been made – Janus knew he was being reckless when he tossed any spare trait onto Creativity, not knowing where else to put them, but why shouldn’t he have? After all, creativity was such a broad concept, encompassing passion, pride in one’s work, imagination, drive, confidence. Who better to handle the load?

And it had made him powerful. Like a new element springing into being in a laboratory, bright and sparking with possibility but unstable, radioactive. An inherent danger to anyone who got too near. Janus would not allow himself to be frightened, or at least to admit that he was, but it was impossible not to be awed in the face of that raw power.

Power that made him dangerous. Uncontrollable by Thomas, even, and his name may be Deceit, but it’s always been his job to protect the self. He knew that sometimes preservation requires destruction.

It wasn’t possible to tease out threads like he used to – they had all grown too solid and real to be changed in the old way. For a final moment, Janus watched the sleeping time bomb. Creativity looked so peaceful as he slept, stray hairs drifted over his eyes and catching in his eyelashes; lips parted slightly to release soft sighs. It was difficult to imagine the heights of ecstasy and cruelty that would seize that innocent face once the sun rose.

Yet the sun would rise.

Janus brought the shears down with all his strength thrown behind the decisive _slice._ Creativity’s peaceful expression transfigured into a mask of pain, followed by a wailing scream that abruptly cut off as his body wavered and vanished, replaced by a rent skein of tattered and bloody thread. The halves fell away from each other like sections of an orange, then suddenly Creativity was back. Except now he was two.

~

Sitting amongst the ruins of his creations, Remus tries to laugh. That’s what Janus guesses, anyway, because what actually comes out is a wet and choking wheeze.

“It’ll take me months to get those back to their former glory,” Remus hacks out through blood-soaked lips. “Now they just look like a cheap paint job.”

Janus still stands at a distance, eyeing the other Side warily. Strewn on the ground around them are pieces of wood, metal, plastic, and something uncomfortably organic, warped into nightmarish forms but now lifeless and bland like an amusement park seen in the daytime. Being Deceit has its perks despite the job’s general thanklessness, including the ability to see through the illusions Remus conjures up and reduce them to their bare bones – quite literally in some cases. It’s a good thing too, or Janus would surely be the one bleeding out on the ground at the moment. Illusory did not equal harmless.

“I apologize for the damage. I would have spared them, could it have been avoided.”

“Are you talking about my creations or my mortal injury?”

Janus hides his grimace as the familiar guilt threatens to well up. He distracts himself with speech before it can gain a foothold. “You’ll be fine once it’s over, Remus, I promise. I have no choice.”

Remus face twists into something savage, and his words come out in a fierce rush. “Oh, of course, no choice but to tear chunks out of my chest, that checks out. I never knew you had a blood kink, Bullshit Boa, but I can think of much sexier scenarios than this if you’re looking to _indulge._ ” He pauses to gulp in a ragged breath, then, “If you’re so desperate, why don’t you just vivisect yourself?”

Janus knows that Remus is no longer speaking in innuendo. For a moment a powerful flare of anger burns away the fumes of guilt, and Janus wants to shout back – _You know nothing! Don’t you understand? I would give him all of myself if I only could, but I cannot, and that causes me greater pain than any you have ever felt. And trust me, I have tried._

Oh, how he had tried. How he had plunged his hand into his own chest and pulled, yanking with all his might until his throat went raw from screaming and he collapsed in a shaking heap on the floor. Perhaps he should’ve kept Danger’s courage for himself after all.

But instead of shouting any of those things, Janus takes a deep breath, adjusts his gloves, and forces himself to speak calmly. “It isn’t possible. You and Roman are quite literally cut from the same cloth. Your threads, being of the same essence, have a natural affinity for each other. Nothing of mine will bind to him, not anymore. You know that.”

Remus scoffs. Whether at his excuses or his devotion, Janus can’t tell. “So what? Get your scaley nose out of Roman’s ass long enough to actually look at him! He isn’t any better off now than he was before you made me into some kind of fucked up My Brother’s Keeper.”

“Did you not find the premise of the original novel already disturbing?”

Remus is red with rage beneath the crimson smears of blood. “It’s not _working,_ Hugh J-anus. You can rip off chunks of me and paste them onto him all the way until we’re one Side again, but that won’t _fix_ anything. You can’t fix what’s wrong with somebody on the inside by stapling Band-Aids down their throat and up their ass!”

“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Janus retorts, and he intends it to be smug with deliberate misunderstanding, but the words come out uncertain. He feels unsteady all of a sudden, like he’s perched very precariously on a rug that any moment will be pulled out from under him.

~

The drastic measure seemed to be a success at first, but the triumph was short-lived, for Janus’s cut had been imprecise. He’d had no practice, hadn’t even been sure it would work, and should’ve expected his inexperience to have consequences. People speak of death and taxes, but the only constant Janus has ever known is that: consequences.

His failure became obvious quickly. The new halves were not equal – one was far weaker, beautiful yet fragile like a butterfly’s wings. It was a strange weakness because that half – _Roman,_ now – had received the lion’s share of his predecessor’s functions, yet he seemed to possess only their most damaging shades. The emotional investment of passion but none of the fortifying perseverance. The recklessness of courage but none of the confidence. The self-consciousness of self-worth but none of the sense of worthiness. Those complements had gone to Remus.

He and Janus had been friends, once. Remus had forgiven him for the mutilation with a dismissive wave of a hand, but he would not forgive him for what came next.

Roman was weak, but he was so dearly, terribly important. And his other half was right there, never quite healed from their split. His center buried shallow, threads flickering visibly beneath the skin and still connected to his brother’s – a consequence of the violence of their separation, perhaps. Surely whatever Roman was missing was in there somewhere. Surely if Janus cut the right piece out of Remus, he could graft it onto Roman’s limping core and fix him for good. So Janus cut and chopped and cleaved until his yellow gloves stained red. They never quite lost the stink of iron no matter how he washed them.

Yet Roman did not grow stronger.

~

Janus comprehends Remus’s crudely phrased point, but he cannot accept it. Because what he’s just accused of being stupid and pointless is exactly what Janus has been doing all his life, since long before Roman or Remus or even names. He thinks about Logan – too prideful and bitter. Virgil – skittish and uncertain. Patton – heartbroken and fragile. If Janus had only had more time, more chances to shift things before everyone became too much Themselves, he could have made them perfect, healthy, whole. He could have made things right, and then none of this would have had to happen.

Janus has always been gifted at believing his own lies.

He realizes with a start that Remus is still speaking. He exerts to pay attention through the vertigo.

“Roman’s problem isn’t that he needs a new arm or leg or function or _whatever._ You really don’t get it. It’s your fucking _job_ to get it. Haven’t you ever wondered why the Ego is so weak and fragile in the first place?”

“I had to separate you. You weren’t stable as a whole – ”

“I’m not talking about the stupid split. I’m talking about the fact that Roman is _Thomas’s Ego,_ and he’s only ever one mean YouTube comment away from turning black and blue!” Remus shouts, and Janus flinches. “That’s _not normal._ You only see us all as meat sacks of functions, big old organ soup you can squish through a sieve to pick out the parts you want. But the _problem_ isn’t that Roman needs a motivation transplant or romance graft. The _problem_ isn’t Roman’s inventory of functions needing some tweaking. The _problem_ is _Roman.”_

Blood rushes in Janus’s ears, and his hands have gone sweaty beneath their gloves. Through shaky vision he can see Remus’s own chest heaving, making the blood flow faster from his ragged wounds. But he doesn’t relent.

“He’s supposed to be Thomas’s conceit, self-love, pride – sure sounds like Roman until you spend more than one claw-your-own-skin-off-from-boredom minute with him. He’s less secure than a grandma’s email account. Now, who do we know that could help him with that? Is it me, the spare heir? Or is it the one whose whole job revolves around loving Thomas more than the goddamn universe? Who would fucking immolate themselves for Thomas to have a good afternoon!”

Janus shakes his head, fighting off something like despair. “I already told you,” he almost pleads, “I can’t give anything to him. I’ve tried.”

Remus doesn’t seem to care about his emotional turmoil. “For the love of Chris Hemsworth’s abs, have you always been this dense?” he asks, and his eyes roll nearly out of their sockets, probably only staying put so they can stare daggers through Janus’s skull. “I just said to stop thinking of us as a bunch of functions. Roman – the _Ego_ – thinks he’s worthless! Maybe if someone who thinks very much otherwise actually went and _talked_ to him for once, he wouldn’t fucking think that anymore!”

“What?” Janus asks stupidly, thrown. _Talk to Roman?_ The thought makes his heart leap into his throat.

Janus has never spoken to Roman. Has never even allowed himself into the same room as him except to perform the most recent transplant. And even then, he makes sure to leave the moment it’s done, no matter how badly he wishes to linger and stare at that slumbering face that no longer wakes into turns of sunshine and thunder. Even Remus knows of Janus only by necessity. To reveal himself would defeat the purpose of his job; one cannot work from the shadows with their identity cast into the light.

And of course, there is the matter that Roman would certainly hate him. As soon as he realized that Janus was behind his discomfort of ill-fitting skin stretched over a ragbag core. He’d probably take it as an insult, a remark on his inferiority and – well, perhaps Janus should have considered that unintended consequence before he began this whole venture, but he was too busy considering all the others. Regardless, Janus would have Roman ignorant of his existence over actively hateful of him, even if the lack of contact _burns._

Janus has never changed his own threads like he has the others’, yet he succeeded in altering himself after all. For the very moment that Creativity became two and Janus saw what the weaker, fragile half had become, he had felt the shift. What was once diffuse had become concentrated in one form, and the new mandate thrummed through Janus’s very essence – _protect the Ego._ Deceit, denial, self-preservation: all defense mechanisms who had one purpose. _Protect, protect, protect._

Now Roman needs him, and Janus is still hiding in the shadows like a coward. He had never thought – the idea that Roman couldn’t love himself because he had no idea Thomas’s unconditional self-love even _existed_ – it anguishes him to realize. Janus cannot bear to be hated by the one he loves most, but he can bear to see his love suffering least of all.

Despite the anger still flaring in his expression, Remus watches him carefully, reading the emotions passing across Janus’s face like the open book it has surely become.

“I can’t,” Janus says, and God, he hates how pathetically mewling he sounds.

“I’m not giving you a pep talk,” Remus replies flatly, and Janus wants to recoil just from the uncanniness of that tone out of his mouth. “Either you talk to him, or he keeps on being Frankenstein’s sad monster. Oh, and you keep using me as an involuntary organ donor, Monty Python.”

The ultimatum stinks of truth. Janus knows the choice he must make, which hasn’t been a choice at all ever since he found Remus crouching here amongst his own pooling blood. They are not friends anymore, but Janus has always been too soft for his own good. And his system has always been broken. He looks at the chunk of half-severed knot dangling out of Remus’s chest, and the wave of guilt that crashes over his head nearly sends him to his knees.

“Here, let me,” he murmurs on impulsive, stepping closer. Remus flinches violently back, baring his teeth and releasing a gurgling growl. Janus holds up his hands in a placating gesture. _I mean no harm. I have caused harm enough for several lifetimes, now._

“I…I’m sorry,” he says, and within the words are a mountain of regret. “You – you let me do horrible things to you. Could you truly not stop me?”

The words are wrong, Janus knows. Not compassionate, not comforting, a needy attempt to find reassurance for the worthless pain he’d caused for nothing. Selfish. Yet he can find nothing else to say.

Remus shrugs and averts his gaze for the first time since Janus found him here. “I didn’t _want_ you to do it, if that’s what you mean. But…it’s Roman,” he finally says. And oh, how Janus knows what he means.

“Let me sew that closed. It won’t heal on its own.”

Remus scoffs. “Of course it won’t.” But he doesn’t flinch this time when Janus comes near, and he allows Janus to summon a needle out of the air, and he doesn’t even stab him with it once the stitches are done.

They are not friends. They will not be friends for a very long time. But, Janus thinks, one day they might.

~

Janus picks at the hem of his gloves and straightens his hat over and over again as he waits in the middle of his room. He’s chosen this time carefully to ensure no one else will be around when he goes out. Except for _him._

When he’s fidgeted long enough that his legs start to fall asleep, he sinks out. A moment later he’s standing just on the edge of the living-room-but-not, shoulder bumping the staircase bannister. Yellow light fans in from the kitchen, casting a dim glow across the room. The sound of cicadas drifts through the cracked window on a cool night breeze. Amidst the peaceful quiet, there is a figure sitting on the couch. Janus’s heart nearly halts its beating when he spots him.

The man is hunched over a notebook, pencil in his mouth and tapping a page with an impatient finger. His hair is mussed, his clothes rumpled, his eyes shadowed from fatigue. Janus thinks he has never seen anyone so handsome.

He clears his throat. Roman jumps in his seat and whirls around, the pencil going flying across the room.

“Geez, way to sneak up on a guy in the middle of the night – oh. Who…are you?” Roman’s tone shifts from annoyed to so innocently confused that Janus could – never mind that. Roman has asked him a question.

“Hello,” he begins, pauses to steady his voice, begins again. “I’m De – ” Another pause as the weight of possibility hangs heavy in the air. He thinks about the nature of love. About trust.

“My name is Janus. It’s lovely to finally make your acquaintance, Roman.”

Roman still looks confused and not a little wary, but there’s already a smile twitching onto his face in response to Janus’s own. Janus hadn’t intended to smile, although that would have been tactically wise, and is surprised to find that one has made its way onto his face regardless. Not very surprised, though, because Roman is standing before him and something sweet is singing in his veins with how _right_ this feels. Suddenly it seems like everything before now had been wrong, like a dislocated joint he’s only noticed now that it’s popped back into place.

Roman is asking him something again, but Janus is too busy staring at his eyes and nose and lips to hear any of the words. In a moment he will ask Roman to repeat himself. In a moment Janus will still be standing here, not fled, not sneaking one last glance through a bedroom door. And they will both still be here in the moment after that. They will have a hundred thousand moments in this hopeful new future, and Janus does not feel the need to rush.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! You can find me on tumblr @tothestanders


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